The Economist recently published a colour supplement titled "In God's Name: A Special Report on Religion and Public Life" (3 November 2007). The accompanying leading article included a rueful admission: "The Economist was so confident of the Almighty's demise that we published His obituary in our millennium issue." There is an almost palpable sense of discomfort at a leading international journal finding itself confronted with the unexpected resurgence of religion as a newsworthy topic which merits serious debate.
Tina Beattie is reader in Christian studies, Roehampton
University, England. Among her books are God's Mother, Eve's Advocate
(Allen & Unwin, 2002)
and New
Catholic Feminism: Theology and Theory
(Routledge 2005). Her
website is here
Tina Beattie's latest book is The New
Atheists (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007)
Also by Tina Beattie in openDemocracy:
"Pope Benedict XVI and Islam:
beyond words"
(17 September 2006)
"Veiling the issues: a distractive
debate" (24 October 2006)
"Religion in Britain in the Blair
era" (10 January 2007)
"Religion's cutting edge: lessons
from Africa"
(14 February 2007)As the article points out, much of this can be
attributed to the upsurge in various forms of religious extremism during the
last thirty years, and the recent atheist backlash by bestselling authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. If we are to understand this phenomenon and
its social and political implications, then we must go beyond the headline-grabbing
confrontations between religious and atheist extremists. We need to explore
some of the complex underlying reasons for the persistence of religion after a
century in which it more or less disappeared from view in western politics and
public life, and was banished by totalitarian communist regimes.
The wrong argument
We might begin by recognising that the concept of religion is misleading, so that our discussions become mired in misrepresentations and over-simplifications. Our modern understanding of religion is informed by a post-Enlightenment approach in which science, reason and progress have replaced religion as the organising focus of western life, but the word "religion" also has connotations associated with 19th-century western imperialism. The word derives from the Latin religio. It has had different meanings through Roman and then Christian history, but it acquired its present meaning during the quest for objective, scientific knowledge and colonial conquest which together shaped modern British history.
During the Victorian era, new "sciences" such as anthropology and ethnology developed in order to study the "primitive" peoples and societies whom Europe's empire-builders encountered in their travels. Enthusiasm for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution meant that the study of religion came into being as a way of ranking and studying other cultures in comparison to the defining norm of western civilisation, by scholars who believed that the white western male stood on the highest rung of the evolutionary ladder. The word "science" also changed its meaning during the 19th century, from a generic word used to describe all forms of knowledge including theology and philosophy, to one more narrowly focused on an objective, rationalist approach to knowledge based on empirical evidence alone. That is why the nature of the current confrontation between "science" and "religion" is so problematic, because we are dealing with two slippery concepts which come freighted with a deeply ambivalent historical legacy.
The 19th-century confrontation between religion and science was largely fuelled by a power-struggle between men of science and men of God, most of them members of the Victorian ruling classes. Whereas the clergy and the Church of England had previously ruled the roost of English public life, in the mid-19th century the dynamics of power shifted, and scientists began to wrest much of the authority from their clerical counterparts in shaping intellectual enquiry and values. But just as this "war" masked a much more amicable and creative dialogue between scientists and theologians in a society which was still largely Christian in its beliefs, so today the attempt to portray the relationship between science and religion as one of irreconcilable conflict is a distortion of a more pluralist intellectual and religious environment.
Many scientists see no fundamental conflict between science and faith, and some argue that quantum physics challenges any attempt to maintain a strict distinction between scientific and philosophical or theological knowledge. Some scientists - such as the head of the human-genome project, Francis S Collins - have converted from atheism to Christianity as a result of their scientific research. Many members of the scientific community have sought to distance themselves from the self-publicising polemics of Richard Dawkins and his fellow "new atheists", for they see the fact that Dawkins in particular has become so dogmatic and ideologically driven in his militant atheism as a betrayal of the very scientific values which he claims to represent.
The attempt to stage a war between religion and science - whether fuelled by religious or scientific fundamentalists - is part of the problem and not part of the solution with regard to the times we are living in. If we seek to preserve our liberal western values, then we need to resist the spirit of aggression and confrontation which is becoming increasingly characteristic of public debate - in Britain and the United States especially - concerning the role of religion in society.
With regard to debates about Islam, we must recognise how the portrayal of Muslims as violent fundamentalists still resonates with those 19th-century beliefs that white westerners are inherently superior to their savage and barbaric counterparts in other cultures and religions. Also lurking within the media treatment of religion today is a masked anti-Catholicism, for that too has been a feature of modern societies such as Britain and America whose values have been largely shaped by Protestantism. Unless we are attentive to these subtexts, our discussions about religion risk being vehicles for unacknowledged prejudices and historical animosities which can only serve to fuel conflict in these uncertain times.
The limits of rationalism
One way to understand the current crisis in values and beliefs is to situate it in the context of late modernity or postmodernity, when the democratic and scientific values which emerged in the various intellectual and political revolutions of the 18th century are disintegrating. Today, we face a world of complexity and plurality which some find exhilarating in its freedoms and opportunities, but others find terrifying in its lack of certainties and truths.
The term "postmodernism" is associated with Jean-François Lyotard's book, The Postmodern Condition, published in 1979, but the era of postmodernity had its genesis in the aftermath of the second world war, when all the values which had sustained modern western societies for two centuries were in meltdown. How could visions of progress and the civilising power of reason survive two world wars and the Nazi genocide? How could science provide answers to human suffering, when it had provided us with such a devastating capacity for destruction and killing?
This uncertainty has increased as the full implications of the 20th century have dawned upon us. Never in human history did so many people slaughter one another in the name of so many ideologies and visions of progress, all of them informed by a post-religious secular ideology - whether it was the quasi-paganism of Nazism or the atheism of the Soviet Union, China or Cambodia. If the Enlightenment signified the liberation of western societies from the tyranny of religion and theocratic rule, we discovered in the 20th century that the cruelty of God-fearing societies might be rivalled only by that of godless societies.
Although the new atheists are dogmatic in their refusal to accept that line of argument, it remains the context in which we must situate our reflections on the crises confronting us at the beginning of the 21st century. Those with greater historical sensitivity and philosophical insight than Dawkins know that the gulags, Hiroshima and the gas-chambers have cast a pall over western memory and consciousness, and we are right to distrust the forms of knowledge and the political systems in which such violence was able to take root and grow.
Contrary to what many people hoped, scientific rationalism did not deliver us from the evils of violence, war and hatred, nor did religion wither and die in the glare of the scientific gaze. Instead, religion has revived in virulent new forms which are parasitic upon modernity, for religious extremism is informed by the same ahistorical and literalistic understanding of truth which informs scientific approaches to knowledge, with their shared resistance to ambiguity, doubt and complexity in the quest for meaning. In both cases, the poetic and holistic wisdom of past generations - much of it embedded in religious traditions - is set aside in favour of an aggressive and one-sided dogmatism which ruptures the fabric of human life in its communal and creative dimensions.
But if modernity created the conditions in which religious and scientific fundamentalisms took root, it is postmodernity which has created the kind of volatile social environment in which these opposing forces encounter one another with potentially explosive violence. While postmodernism destabilises all claims to truth and creates a widespread mood of doubt and scepticism, it also creates a cultural vacuum in which every form of extremism and identity politics can flourish, while sapping us of the collective vision and energy needed to challenge corrupt and unjust political structures.
One of the great myths of postmodernism is its celebration of the death of the "meta-narrative", its paradoxical claim that the only universal truth is that there is no universal truth. But this is a lie, for never has humankind been so dominated by a single meta-narrative as it is today, when global capitalism threatens to eliminate every other narrative and every other meaning from human life. While the histories and traditions which have bound people together and conferred upon communities a sense of meaning and belonging are under siege from all directions, a relentless and inhumane system of global economics is sweeping away the last vestiges of human dignity and hope for those who are exiled, exploited and commodified by the wars, corruptions and burgeoning inequalities which our economic system brings in its wake. This is the context in which we must situate our reflections if we want to ask why so many people are attracted to rigid and dogmatic forms of religion.
A fury for certitude
Mark Juergensmeyer, in his fine study of religious violence, Terror in the Mind of God (2001), argues that religion is rarely in itself a cause of war and violence, but it can provide a potent moral justification for violence as a form of resistance to perceived injustices and inequalities. Thus the current phenomenon of religious extremism must be understood in the context of the widespread failure of secularism and the modern nation state in their inability to challenge deprivation and injustice. Faced with the combined forces of western military and economic power, disenfranchised and alienated groups begin to see the West as the primary source of global injustice and moral corruption.
Also in openDemocracy on Europe's struggles
with and over faith
Patrick Weil, "A nation in
diversity: France, Muslims and the headscarf" (25 March 2004)
Gilles Kepel, "Europe's
answer to Londonistan" (24 August 2005)
Tariq Modood, "Remaking
multiculturalism after 7/7" (29 September 2005)
openDemocracy, "Muslims and
Europe: a cartoon confrontation" (6 February 2006) - a
symposium
Roger Scruton, "The great hole
of history" (11 September 2006)
Michael Walsh, "The Regensburg
address: reason amid certainty" (20 September 2006)
Faisal Devji, "Between Pope
and Prophet" (26 September 2006)
Ehsan Masood, "British
Muslims: ends and beginnings" (31 October 2006)
Faisal Devji, "Epistles of
moderation" (18 October 2007)
Olivier Roy, "Secularism
confronts Islam" (25 October 2007)
From this perspective, religious zealotry can be interpreted as the other face of the metropolitan fancy-dress parade which constitutes the consumerist lifestyles of postmodern urban elites, reflecting as they do the banality and homogeneity of a global market which is no respecter of boundaries, cultures and traditions. Instead of freedom we have choice, and instead of values we have labels and lifestyles. We citizens of the western democracies have become solipsistic consumers indifferent to the squandering of our hard-won freedoms and rights by governments for which terrorism has become a byword for ever-more draconian strategies of surveillance and control.
As democracy withers and the political forum is colonised by the suave-speaking mediocrities of the soundbite era, as blatant self-interest on the part of the world's most powerful nations becomes an excuse for every kind of collusion in the politics of corruption and violence, we in whose names the battles are being fought have allowed our horizons to shrink so that we see no further than the nearest shopping-mall. And we are the privileged ones, the citizens whose security merits any injustice, any violation of human rights, against the immigrants, fanatics and foreigners who threaten our vacuous existence. Should we be surprised that some of them are declaring war on us?
For many others, it is religion - particularly in its more dogmatic forms - that offers a potent alternative; those drawn to it include people both disenfranchised from the beginning because they are too poor or too oppressed to participate in the postmodern shop-fest, and people who are afraid of what they perceive as the moral meltdown of modern western culture. In these forms of religion, people can find certainty instead of confusion, clear rules instead of ambiguity, tight-knit communities instead of shifting and transient relationships; and all this is presided over by a wrathful male God who hates all the things they hate - particularly gays, feminists and libertarians of every description - and who sanctions violence in order to keep His values safe from corruption.
What vision of democracy?
On 9/11, the postmodern condition met its nemesis. When Osama bin Laden's suicidal supporters selected their targets, they were selecting symbols which represent the west's economic, military and political hegemony with all its corrupted values and degenerate politics. Living as we do in the swirl of history which followed that event, we lack the critical distance to assess its impact and evaluate its consequences. However, the shift in western attitudes from the laissez-faire pluralism of postmodernity to the more hard-edged antagonism of cultural commentators such as Dawkins, AC Grayling, Polly Toynbee and other guardians of secular truth has to be understood in that context.
If sufficient critical distance is not possible, it is possible to say that since 9/11 we have gone beyond the postmodern condition; and that what we do next will determine whether we discover in our new circumstances the abyss of a violent nihilism and war without end, or the beginnings of a new and hopeful flourishing among peoples in harmony with our natural environment, which is our only hope of redemption. The latter would require that we recognise the awesome responsibilities which come with our much vaunted values of freedom, democracy and human rights. In the era of war without end in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, the contrast between the protests of the public and the indifference of its leaders (as after the huge worldwide demonstrations of February 2003) is a stark expression of how these values are routinely traduced.
The most pressing question confronting us lies here: how to respond to the slow death of democracy. The recent confrontation between religion and science is in this context a smokescreen which is distracting us from much more urgent political and intellectual issues. It allows the secular intelligentsia to hide behind a convenient and inflated - where not fabricated - myth of religious extremism which masks from us our own complicity in the murder and mayhem by which western global supremacy and our own privileged status within that are now maintained.
The Buddhist monks of Burma have shown us that religion is not always the enemy of freedom. Sometimes it can inspire very great acts of courage in the name of democracy and human rights. If religions have too often sanctioned killing in the name of God, they also have the capacity to instil in their followers the understanding that sometimes, there are values worth dying for. Let us listen to the silence of those - for now - defeated monks. In our noisy and increasingly violent defence of freedom, we must ask ourselves what vision of democracy inspired them to protest in peace and to die in hope. I think it was Martin Luther King who asked: "If there is nothing you are willing to die for, is there anything you have that's worth living for?" The postmodern condition gave us nothing to die for and nothing to live for, but it seems to have given us a great deal we are willing to kill for.
Comments
www.emergentislam.blogspot.com
...but, I feel, full of dangerous simplifications to make her point. It is easy to demonise the vanguard of the new godless; Dawkins has made a strawman of himself, and it is to the movements great detriment that he has become so ridiculous.
However, his pomposity and delusions of grandeur are easily matched by some other religious figures, including a pope who is so ridiculous and distanced from his people as to believe that faith and abstinence are a more effective and likely prophylactic than condoms, or misogynist islam clerics.
Yes, there are ridiculous advocates of science, just as there are of religion. The important distinction remains, however, of the scientists being prepared to question their own beliefs, and for the overall corpus of scientific knowledge to advace and change, which would be anathema to any religious movement.
It is also dangerous to conflate the political goals of the Burmese monks with lazy Judeo-christian moralising. The monks have been forced to make their stand by the actions of a callous junta. I shall not lower myself to Tina Beattie's invokation of Godwins law, but the Catholic church hardly has a history of defiance against totalitarianism...As Shawn nots above, pinning social problems on religious or scientific creeds can divert from the real problem. It is rare that a religion has explicitly encouraged the killing of heathens, outsiders or foreigners...far more often, it is a firebrand cleric or national leader who has used the fervour of the religious in order to incite hatred.
We must be on guard against these people, and stop dictating what is or is not 'right' for people to believe, which, in my view at least, is what the flexible thinking of a postmodern world view encourages.F
For a long time I had trouble to understand what opendemocracy is about. Now I think I understand.
It's user generated content, but with a twist:
For me it's a relief to realize this.
Remember that Muslim societies sending emigrants to Europe are experiencing the demographic transition too - Turkey, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon already have sub-replacement birth rates
No they don't.
Birth rates for Turkey, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon.
Actually, the populations of all of these countries are expanding, expanding, expanding.
Alas, this article contains a mishmash of largely unrelated ideas, some hopelessly misguided, some interesting and stimulating, a few fairly banal and obvious. The emotional attacks on Richard Dawkins, while currently fashionable, are almost entirely off-beam. The implied criticisms of his position are all answered in 'The God Delusion' and Dawkins's other books and articles. Many of the article's propositions about religion, advanced as refutations of his beliefs are in fact adopted by Dawkins as valid and consistent with his critique of the religious position. In order to agree that many non-religious and anti-religious ideologies have caused immense suffering and been responsible for millions of deaths it's quite unnecessary, indeed illogical, to hold that therefore any rejection of religion will have the same negative results.
Moreover, it's nonsense to dismiss Dawkins as 'dogmatic'. The proposition that one should not believe statements which are inherently (or in the light of experience) improbable and for which there is no or inadequate evidence is at the heart of common sense. Dawkins acknowledges that it's possible to conceive of cogent evidence becoming available for the existence of God, and that if this were to happen, he would accept that he had been wrong and change his belief system accordingly. But until such evidence becomes available, he (and millions of sensible people like him) will conduct their lives on the basis that the existence of God is much more unlikely than likely and that as of now there is no convincing reason for believing it, any more than there is a convincing reason for believing in the existence of Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. To call that position dogmatic robs the word of any meaning. Nor is Dawkins either arrogant or indeed humourless: he states his views forcefully and with wit, and if his anticipation of likely criticisms by theists upsets them, he can hardly be pilloried as intolerant or dogmatic as a result.
The sad thing is that by her emotional and poorly argued attack on the Dawkins position on religion, Ms Beattie casts a shadow of scepticism over the things she then goes on to say, although they are logically quite unconnected with it, and deserve to be judged in their own right. Many of her subsequent arguments make useful and valid points. It's just a pity that she starts off by disqualifying herself as a rational and objective analyst by her rant against the secular position which an increasing majority of educated people in the 21st century adopt. It's quite unnecessary, and one would have thought undesirable, to begin a debate by alienating a high proportion of those who are most likely to be impressed by your main arguments.
Brian B
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
A number of contributors appear to assume that they have knowledge of an infallible definition of science or democracy. Current academic literature calls such strong assertions in to question. One good place to start with regard to science, that is relevant to the questions raised in the article would be Trigg R (1993) Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?
It can be argued that there will never be incontestable empirical proof for the existence of God as (at least) mainstream Christianity understands God. This for a number of reasons, perhaps most relevant to the present discussion, if God created humans with freewill importantly including freedom to choose to have faith in God or not, then God is not likely to leave incontestable empirical evidence lying around waiting to be discovered. If that was the 'game' God could just have created robots (or should that be Angels?). Also, if God is omnipresent then it is unlikely that reductive empirical processes can discover God because they cannot take God out of the experiment to produce a control.
I believe that it would be better practice by those who assert that religion is necessarily irrational to read at least some defences by those who are religious and claim reasonableness of religion. A Christian starting point which claims that since St Paul Christianity has been and remains reasonable is 'Faith and Reason' which is easy to find on Google, see: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html . The introduction to A Muslim position can be found at http://www.oneworld-publications.com/books/texts/faith-and-reason-intro.htm with this and a related book being available from that publisher. A Bahá'í statement on religion and science can be found at http://info.bahai.org/article-1-3-2-18.html . I would be interested in other similar arguments by other faith groups.
It is common for many intelligent and open people to misunderstand claims of by the Roman Catholic Church to infallibility in matters of faith and morals. To simplify, the claim is that a council of the Roman Catholic Church or a Pope can speak infallibly on such matters but not everything that a Pope says is infallible. Again simplifying, the only time in which the Church spoke infallibly in the 20th Century was to claim in 1950 that the body of Mary was assumed into heaven, in part as a defence of the human body against the 'calamities' of WWI and WWII. Thus neither the current or last Pope have spoken infallibly, so Popes can change their minds and have pasta rather than pizza for lunch (or should that be wurst rather than schnitzel) without claims for authority by the Church collapsing. For more authoritative but not infallible treatments see http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2A.HTM paragraphs 888-892 for a fuller explanation of how the Church currently describes it's infallibility, note the discursive democratic flavour of infallibility in paragraph 889. See also http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm for a fuller and older (i.e. less P.C.) explanation. The (democratic?) process that led to the infallible definition of Mary as having been assumed into Heaven is described here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html
What/Which god are you talking about?
Tina Beatty did a good paper here.
There is a big flaw though : Adolph Hitler was not an atheist at all, he was a Christian, and an ancient child of choir at that. Several proofs :
- In his book there is no trace of atheism. In no speech or writing did he reject religion.
- In 1932, just 2 months after he came in power, he signed a "concordate" with the Pope and Protestant heads, giving many rights to the Catholic and Protestant churches of Germany : for example, priests are directly paid by the german State since then.
- The horrible Waffen SS elite troops had written on their belt buckle "Gott mit Uns".
- The Nazis tried to exterminate primarily Jews and Slaves. They placed Slaves just above Jews in their stupid "scale" of "races", and assassinated 20 millions of them. That corresponds to two religions (judaism and orthodoxy), so they had obviously religious motives for their murders.
By the way, all forms of fascism were connected to christianism :
- The Pope Pie 12 did never talk against Hitler nor Mussolini nor general Franco ; Franco was extremely christian, his regime type is called "national-catholic".
- There were Cardinals in several south america juntas supported by the USA.
- All fascisms were seen by the West as the antithesis of communism : christian, capitalist, hierarchical.
When this article brackets Dawkins & Harris, who have never raised a finger to anyone or threatened to so, in the same category as suicide bombers you know that facts and reasonable argument have gone by the board in favour of the sort of rigid idea the author criticises.
GordonHide
"If we are to understand this phenomenon and its social and political implications, then we must go beyond the headline-grabbing confrontations between religious and atheist extremists."
Are these the same Atheist Extremists that take such violent offence at the USA adopting the motto "One Nation Under God" or that in the UK Anglican bishops have seats in the House of Lords that they write books and do lecture tours?
Heaven save us if their become really militant and utilize their comfy chairs...
Her lecture was one long apology for magical thinking and then she quote-mined Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens to paint them as intolerant bigots. Her main point was that religion offers a way to transcend the mundane, to appreciate beauty. No mention of truth, no mention of the atrocities committed in the name of faith. She blamed the holocaust on Hitler's atheism (she called it neo-paganism) which seems totally dishonest since, as a Christian reader, she should know that it was centuries of Jewish hatred, inculcated by Christians (e.g. Martin Luther's Jews and Their Lies), that led to the holocaust, not just the policies of a madman. I would agree with her that most people of faith practice a benign form of comforting, wishful thinking. What she fails to see is that only when people stand up to the powerful myth-making zealots does enlightment and progress occur. She said she knows of Catholics in Africa that do in fact, hand out condoms, therefor one shouldn't criticize the Vatican. Her apologitic behavior seems cowardly to me...a way to get paid by the faith industry for helping them maintain heir hold on morality. The sacred cow is sacred no more Ann...people are finally exposing religion for the fraud that it is since we no longer have to fear burning at the stake, stoning, banning from public office, ostracism, etc. The term "militant atheism' is a way to sell her book...she blasts the Four Horsemen for speaking the truth and then cries that people of faith are being viciously attacked. Not one word did she utter of child rape, arranged marriages, fatwahs, polygamy, etc...just the tired apologies for organizations that make her feel good while listening to a choir. As Voltaire said, "Religion began when the first rogue met the first fool." Beattie is playing both roles, rogue and fool, and wants us all to keep going along with her silly game of religion because it results in more good than bad. As Lennon said, "Just give me some truth."
WHY BERLINSKY'S FUNDAMENTALIST ANTI-SCIENCE SOPHISTRY PISSED ME OFF
I read Berlinski's article in COMMENTARY, "The God of the Gaps"...
(for full text)
http://dakowski.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=494&Itemid=48
...on , ironically, the very night of my Easter-- the most important day of my religion, for it is then that Jesus is believed by us to have proven that HE indeed is the Son of God; and so we utter in greeting each other: "Christ has arisen"; to which we respond: "He truly has arisen." Unfortunately, our theologians could neither get together on the date of Easter, except once every few years, for our fellow Christians, nor on the date of Passover for our fellow Jews. Thus, it is here, in what is the key method of science, MEASUREMENT, that there is a Biblical flaw in our faith-- MEASUREMENT...the stuff Berlinski's bank account is made of.
Berlinski is not only arguing for doubt in Darwinian evolution, but he is also INSISTING on the certainty of GOD in man's image (the true logical sequence, for we all have seen man but few if any saw God). In doing so-- to this believer-- he reads and sounds like an adolescent sophist on a Baptist high school debating team (or is it Regents University?) as he bases his case on snip and cut quotes from defensive and angry scientists and singles out for his rage fellow adolescent sophist Christopher [what a nice Christian name] Hitchens. The latter has been the darling of the neocons and their ideological "World War IV" in the Middle East, but I guess not for Berlinski, the man of God in man's image ideology...or is he also a neocon?
Alas, at his best, Berlinski only reiterates the need for philosophical supervision of science....and, presumably of mathematics, applied or contrived, to which I say AMEN, bravo! Here, here-- yes indeed, evolution NEEDS very much philosophical supervision-- alas, here Berlinski can quote no contrarians for none exist among scientists. And most certainly, as a neurobiologist myself, ALL BRAIN SCIENCE DATA needs severe philosophical scrutiny. For that God gave us Gerald Edelman and many, many other older sages of science who no longer litter the libraries with data but philosophically extract ideas from that of others.
Yet, I urge Berlinski to heed the caution of neurophilosopher William Calvin and be weary of the "janitor's dream" of fundamentals ridden particle physicists in the basement trying to conjure up what goes on in the penthouse of the brain where love, hate and ejaculation are enrapturing. No, Mr. Berlinski, nerves do not "twitch," but they depolarize and conduct current. And what they do in assemblies we can barely mathematically model as theory rather than fact. Right now, evolution of the mind, like the Big Bang, is all models in search of falsification tests, much like the theory of eleven universes by a very attractive Harvard theoretical physicist, Lisa Randall. She may be a lot cuter than Darwin ever was, but offers no less a theory in search of falsification tests. Though science is really the inverse of a cancer test: you can't be sure about cancer until a test comes out positive and about science except when an experiment comes out negative, these are not dreamed up, as Berlinski would have us believe in ignorance. Since all these branches of science are incomplete works in progress, should we settle for "God" as a totem blocking their path to adventurous scientific investigation?
Berlinski's vague amorphous God cloud substituting for science is the Old and New Testaments as FACT. That may be fine for the neocon materialists in their quest to "re-establish" Israel (meaning: "defier of God") in Jerusalem as Zionist kings of the Middle East (what else could they ask for in their waining years now that Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin-- the Three Who Made A Revolution of their youth are all dead?) but it fails to define a moral compass for mankind, given that the Bible makes us all look like nothing but circumcised apes vs. the uncircumcised apes.
Neurobiology is a young and maturing experimental science, a term Berlinski failed to consider in his epiphany against it. Evolution is actually history helped with clues from genetics, another young experimental science. Decades from now genetics may be able to tell us what are the chances that Berlinski may go mad; but certainly now it cannot tell us if he is mad...Does that mean we should stop research into the neurobiology of madness and just leave him to clergy instead? We tried that for centuries and all we got were exorcises, Freud and Lewis!
Berlinski's COMMENTARY article is a fraud because it slanders as anti-God the very science that makes no pretensions of knowing anything about God. Yet Berlinski asserts God's divine dominion and that we are made in His image as if he knows best because his revelation came to him upon eating mushrooms or something (he gives us no clue).
Berlinski fails-- nay, AVOIDS-- answering the question: is there ONTOLOGY without ONTOGENY? No, Mr. Berlinski, no Amazonian Indian has, as far as I know, lived a full life in the jungle AND THEN moved on to Cambridge to write a learned and literate PhD thesis on civilization from bottom up and from top down. And, no closer has Berlinski come to a chimp than I to Jesus, so there's little he can say with authority-- other than Chomsky's hypothesis based on "think experiments"-- about the chimp's non-verbal vs. Berlinski verbal type cognition. Again, BEING IS ACQUIRED through a neotony of prolonged maturation-- there is no ontology without ontogeny-- not necessarily a capriciously God given one for the circumcised but rather one acquired by nature-nurture interactions developing into intelligence.
I can't admire Blinks's faith, given that it is a payed-per-word assault on Hitch en's attempts to make a living selling books. Both come off looking like a not too interesting boxing match between two blind fighters. But I do resent the game the noons played ALLEGEDLY (???) on behalf of Israel, exploiting the so-called "Christian Zionists" whom the noons laugh at privately as "dumb gym." The dumb noons don't realize that the domestic agenda of these gos is a Christian-- of their kind only-- America that would eventually deny Blinks and his Nikon fellows citizenship unless they suddenly find Christ. In my old age I was planning to be a philosopher too like my beloved Edeline and Calvin, not to put myself at risk hiding Jews in my armories from the Hagee-ilk Inquisition. That's why I find Berlinski and the neocons and their World War IV ideology so outrageous-- as a scientist, as a Christian and as an American by choice, not chance.
I hope Berlinski's faith in God eventually saves him from the high probability scourge of Alzheimer's better than can our neuroscience to date. As for me, I still think God would rather I research the damned disease rather than just pray wishing that He not inflict it on me but on my pesky neighbor instead.
Daniel E. Teodoru
Many people think that the act "belief" is personal. At the same time it is easy to forget or underestimate the fact that people are socialized in various ways through various channels into what to them is belief of no-belief.
That atheism from the vantage point of view of one's own conception of [Christian or any other] religion could be made a discourse theme, is to me nothing alarming, even if based on selected sources as the writer of the article commented on has done!
"Discourse" is of-course, in this case, not a perfect or the dry method most of those who comment on Ms Tina Beattie's paper would perhaps have wished to see, more-so when thinking about broad scopes of the "sociology" of science and religion, which the issues argued find their explanatory frames. I see her discourse in the two senses as follows: "set-ups", "metaphors", "configurations" and indeed elements of "narratives" also. Collectively, in my view these have made her interpret the world in the way she thinks is 'relative and special'. In that case, if readers find senses of incompleteness, it is partly, because discourses as a method also operate by 'exclusion and silence'. Whether weaknesses in commentators' attitudes above are motivated by the disproportions in subjectivity in relation to objectivity is a matter for those casting the first stones to seek to know a little more about what "discourses" could mean as a method of explanation [even in science]!
In contemporary world, it makes much sense when she writes, and I quote "Unless we are attentive to these subtexts, our discussions about religion risks being vehicles for unacknowledged prejudices and historical animosities which can only serve to fuel conflict in these 'uncertain' times". It is indeed very "pacifist" if we take a little pain and shut our egos to reason and understand! This is no less a discourse portion from an observer of world events, seeing our world system itself groaning! There is no doubt that, when emotions are taxed directly some observers get frightened to the point that other realities have to be invented to counter-balance, which boils down to the point that many occupants of our planet are either directly or indirectly frightened - the result of which is value inventions and counter-inventions! There is an element of the "scientific" in the process, but how do we eliminate what seems to be chaos - and arm of the "paradoxes she refers to] in it?
I am a Finnish citizen, but originally a Nigerian and an African. Although I said belief is personal, it would seem that it is relatively more personal for many Africans, no less shown, for example, by the ongoing debates in the Anglican Church, in which a Nigerian Bishop proposes a 'responsible' stand! Ms Beattie might have reasoned the interrelated worries in other ways, but let me once again quote her "Our modern understanding of religion is informed by a post-enlightenment approach in which science, reason and progress have replaced religion as the organizing focus of western life...." It is not unusual for people to 'think' antique! Is the idea of chaos above distorting to or not to make observers of world events skeptical? By right people react and perceive them as consequences differently getting out of proportions - people fear run-away-inflation in the economy. In politics and the management of world events many are asking where secularism and moral values are: how distant or near they are - even though human society is basically imperfect? Is it a fair or unfair question -expression of emotion?
Fortunately or unfortunately, philosophical issues on which discourses of the kind border on, do not always find easy consensus, especially in a scattered forum like the one we are operating. Still letting loose the discourse is a class-room access to the scattered public. Our world has produced so many technically-minded people, which could make it hard for Ms Beattie meanings to sink in properly. None-the-less, it is fine of her to agitate for "more amicable and creative dialogue between scientists and theologians" - that science and religion are reconcilable and sufficiently pluralistic! One needs to go a little more through Einstein's moral concerns to eventually have reasonable degrees of respect for the fear about what science, if poorly managed can do in war. The institutionalization of science, as a process by which science becomes a democratic policy object of the modern states, can alley some fears if the society and world environment are 'active' enough in the Amitai Etzioni's sense of that world. Open democracy and world public opinion are both sine-qua-non, it certainly does seem.
Many a time, especially for some sensitive social scientists or analysts, the pressure mounts making it easy to forget the power of what the habituation of democracy means. On this ground, I fail to agree with Ms Beattie on the theme of the "death" of democracy. There could be moments of fluctuations (ups and downs similar to trade circles"), even so I believe that its mechanism is sufficiently flexible to weather the storms albeit out of and in balance from time to time. The type of balance we hope democracy operates on is not 'static' but flexible. Again my rebut to our dear Martin Luther King on the theme of "what to die for" I would rather counter-balance it with his writings about "the strength to love", not at all different from 'God is love and hope'.But we have to remember that 'belief' is personal to judge less that we are not judged.
Lawrence Efana [Finland]
Previously very long comment reduced to five points:
Don't forget William Blake's great line about Christ's death on the cross: 'Behold, God is dead, Man is born.' Hitchen's, Dawkins, etc. have about as much spiritual depth as Paul McCartney. They fail to realize the Shakespearean dimension of the spirit not only behind the Gospel's insight into what it takes to break the cycle of satanic rivalry, i.e., the courage to not kill one's adversary but rather to lay down your life for them (and THAT IS REAL COURAGE, supernatural at that, that only people like King or Gandi or St. Paul realized in themselves), but also the the glimpse of life as lived based solely using the imagination. God is the imagination. Read Midsummer Night's Dream: all were changed miraculously.
SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants
HIPPOLYTA
'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
lovers speak of.
THESEUS
More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Every truely imaginative person knows that God is a projection of something in ourselves that we can have access to if we can believe it. Dawkins' is all 'I'll believe it when I'll see it' of Theseus' 'cool reason'; the imagination is 'I will believe it when I see it.' Science is as close as we get to an accurate depiction of the world as we are going to get, but the human imagination is what saves our neck... continually throughout history. Now that is God. Read Blake who linked the spirit of democracy to the Holy Spirit that inspired Paine and Washington. Byron (another great one) rocks, not these blind guide atheists.
Of course Christianity is not the only religion with these insights. And I am glad someone is standing up against the senility of contemporary religion but they hardly sound the depths that such gigantic breakthroughs originally rose from.
Postmodernism as a theory is a joke. You would be hard pressed to find many academic philosophers in the English speaking world who take postmodern "philosophy" seriously, because it is rather silly. It's not for lack of trying, but for lack of substance encountered when reading it.
But postmodernity as a description of our society is fair enough. The dirty little truth is not that rationality or truth does not exist, but that not everyone is rational. Liberal democracy is built on the belief that everyone is a rational autonomous chooser and that when we choose our governments, the overall decision will be rational, even if some of the participants aren't. This can no longer be believed, and the example of democratic responses to climate change by itself is enough to disprove it once and for all. If you don't like that, there have been and will continue to be innumerable examples of public feeblemindedness versus empirically established facts.
Postmodernity is what happens when a society tries to keep the forms of liberal democracy while at the same time avoiding confrontation with irrationality. It does this by pretending that reason doesn't really matter. Well, it doesn't work, and by extension, the kind of democracy we have does not work that well either. How can it, when a large section of the population lives in their own fantasy worlds? As long as our societies refuse to face up to the failures of democracy, we'll have to suffer more stupidity.
Jesus Christ is Alive! I used to be an atheist but realised I had no real purpose in life and nothing that the world offered could fill that spiritual vacuum I felt inside. One day realising that everything the world offered was empty and only of fleeting interest. I humbled myself and repented and invited Jesus into my life. At the moment I said the believer’s prayer I knew that Jesus was alive as I experienced the power and love of his Holy Spirit. That was in 1979 nothing since then has convinced me otherwise than that was the best decision I ever made in my life to become a born again Christian and know the love, joy and power of God's Holy Spirit. I found a living faith that I didn't deserve. It was by God's Grace alone that saved a wretch like me.
I pray than one day when you stop following the fools Dawkins, Graylind & co that you to will find Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Saviour. I am certain that Jesus Christ is alive. I have witnessed many instances where I have seen God's power at work including the miraculous healing of my brother Danny when he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given only weeks to live. That also was in 1979. My brother was miraculously healed by the power of prayer. He is still alive and well 30 years later. The bottom line is that I have lived a life without God and found it to be empty. But I have had the humility to believe in Jesus Christ as the messiah, the saviour of the world and found it to be true. Every time I pray I feel his presence and his amazing love. All the money and power in this world cannot compare than having a personal faith in Jesus Christ.
I hope one day that all you who persecute and ridicule Christians will one day have a Saul experience and be touched by the power of the Holy Spirit on your own road to Damascus (see the book of Acts) and realise how wrong you have been and start to follow Jesus rather than the false empty wisdom of today's aggressive, arrogant atheist and who are laughing all the way to the bank as the many fools are eager to buy their books. When people stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing they believe in anything and anyone. 50 years from now Dawkins will be forgotten. 2000 years have past, since Jesus walked this earth his ministry only lasted three years, he lived a humble life and made no money from his followers, he did no wrong or hurt anyone one but the atheist and the religious people shouted crucify as they were frightened by his message that challenged everything they believed and valued. He was a threat to their cosy world. 2000 years later he is still a threat that's why we now have Christianphobia in the UK today which is lead by several regular Guardian writers and some of the atheistic fools on Cif ( Comment is Free the Guardian discussion blog) can't get enough of the new trendy atheistic thoughts nor their Christian bashing. Dawkins and Grayling and others are the new aggressive bullies on the block, they have no tolerance, no humility, no love and they write with unbelievable arrogance. Humility is a quality that you won't find in any of their writing. They have convinced themselves there is no God yet they make their living hating God, especially the Christian God. Maybe deep down they are frightened that they are totally wrong and that Jesus is the way , the truth and the life.
The one thing we are all sure of is death, even for world leaders, the rich and famous kings or fools. Everything they own will mean nothing, neither will fame in this world be worth anything. They will leave this life as they entered it, NAKED. When that day comes they will be judged by God like everyone else. They won't be feeling so smug when God says to them sorry I don't know you. I cannot find your name in the book of life. Eternal life promised to all believers of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. I pray that one day you will find Him before you die. It wasn't just Saul who had a Damascus Road experience but more recently the great writer and professor C S Lewis. Who wrote he must of been one of the most reluctant converts to Christianity. He went from being an atheist to becoming a born again Christian. Which led to his great books , like the Screwtape letters, the Narnia series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe etc. and so many more. All of his writing was enriched by his new found faith in Jesus Christ. It was his faith that inspired him to write with such wisdom that people in their millions and of all ages still enjoy today. I doubt the same will be said for Richard Dawkins even a few years after his death.
Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and you will be answered. And by God's grace you will be saved.
One last thought, I cannot see the wind but I know its power, I don't know where it comes from or where it goes. But I am absolutely certain it is there. Just as I remain as certain that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be. I feel His love and power and know he is with me every day.
We need to stand and be counted as Christians and answer the new trendy atheism that is sweeping the UK and led by the likes of Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling and many others. There is nothing more powerful than your personal testimony and focusing on Jesus Christ and the need to become a Christian to be saved. I recommend a book I have just read titled The Wild Gospel by Alison. Morgan, an Anglican minister living in the UK. It has inspired me and given me the clarity to stand up for my faith as above, in the face of the Christianphobia , and aggressive atheism we are now experiencing in the UK.. I recommend you buy this book and share it with other Christians it is an inspirational book for these times.
Be bold, be strong Christian brothers and sisters and be soldiers of the cross. We have the victory in Jesus Christ’s resurrection power. Go into the world and tell people the good news of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit will give you the wisdom and words that you need.
This is the most powerful and passionate sermon I have ever read or ever heard.
In Great Britain today, we are facing very difficult times ahead with a breakdown in our society; financially, morally and spiritually and there are many people who have worries and concerns about the future. I believe it would help people throughout the UK to read and hear this sermon about the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords; Jesus Christ. Perhaps if you are a church leader you could arrange for it to be read out to your congregation by someone who has the gift of speaking with passion and believes with all their heart, the words of this sermon.. I hope this sermon will be read and heard for generations to come. Every time I read it or hear it, I just feel the love and power of the Jesus Christ coming through by the power of his Holy Spirit. If you agree with my thoughts why not pass on this email to your friends. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever; this message will never be dated.
“That’s My King”
The late Dr. S. M. Lockeridge, a pastor from San Diego, California
said these words in a sermon in Detroit in 1976:
My King was born King. The Bible says He’s a Seven Way King. He’s the King of the Jews – that’s an Ethnic King. He’s the King of Israel – that’s a National King. He’s the King of righteousness. He’s the King of the ages. He’s the King of Heaven. He’s the King of glory. He’s the King of kings and He is the Lord of lords. Now that’s my King.
Well, I wonder if you know Him. Do you know Him? Don’t try to mislead me. Do you know my King? David said the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. My King is the only one of whom there are no means of measure that can define His limitless love. No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of the shore of His supplies. No barriers can hinder Him from pouring out His blessing.
He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere. He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful. That’s my King. He’s God’s Son. He’s the sinner’s saviour. He’s the centrepiece of civilization. He stands alone in Himself. He’s honest. He’s unique. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He’s supreme. He’s pre-eminent. He’s the grandest idea in literature. He’s the highest personality in philosophy. He’s the supreme problem in higher criticism. He’s the fundamental doctrine of historic theology. He’s the carnal necessity of spiritual religion. That’s my King.
He’s the miracle of the age. He’s the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him. He’s the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He saves. He’s the Almighty God who guides and keeps all his people. He heals the sick. He cleanses the lepers. He forgives sinners. He discharged debtors. He delivers the captives. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged. He rewards the diligent and He beautifies the meek. That’s my King.
Do you know Him? Well, my King is a King of knowledge. He’s the wellspring of wisdom. He’s the doorway of deliverance. He’s the pathway of peace. He’s the roadway of righteousness. He’s the highway of holiness. He’s the gateway of glory. He’s the master of the mighty. He’s the captain of the conquerors. He’s the head of the heroes. He’s the leader of the legislatures. He’s the overseer of the overcomers. He’s the governor of governors. He’s the prince of princes. He’s the King of kings and He’s the Lord of lords. That’s my King.
His office is manifold. His promise is sure. His light is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His Word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I wish I could describe Him to you . . . but He’s indescribable. That’s my King. He’s incomprehensible, He’s invincible, and He is irresistible.
I’m coming to tell you this, that the heavens of heavens can’t contain Him, let alone some man explain Him. You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hands. You can’t outlive Him and you can’t live without Him. The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. The witnesses couldn’t get their testimonies to agree about Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him. That’s my King.
He always has been and He always will be. I’m talking about the fact that He had no predecessor and He’ll have no successor. There’s nobody before Him and there’ll be nobody after Him. You can’t impeach Him and He’s not going to resign. That’s my King! That’s my King!
Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Well, all the power belongs to my King. We’re around here talking about black power and white power and green power, but in the end all that matters is God’s power. Thine is the power. Yeah. And the glory. We try to get prestige and honor and glory for ourselves, but the glory is all His. Yes. Thine is the Kingdom and the power and glory, forever and ever and ever and ever. How long is that? Forever and ever and ever and ever. . . And when you get through with all of the ever’s, then . . .Amen!
Dr Shadrach Meshach Lockeridge born 13 March 1913 died 04 April 2000.
A brief profile of the man:
Ministry: In 1942 he accepted his first pastorate at fourth ward Baptist Church in Ennis Texas. In August 1952 he was named pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego where he served until retiring in 1993. During Dr Lockeridge’s tenure at Calvary Baptist, a predominantly African-American congregation, his ministry touched the lives of more than 100,000 people. He preached at crusades, revivals, Christian rallies and evangelistic conferences around the world. Dr Lockerridge was active in the civil rights movement, under his leadership Calvary Baptist hosted several of its leaders, including Dr Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson. He served as guest lecturer at numerous schools, universities and Christian faculties including the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. His best known message is a six and half minute description of Jesus Christ, known as: “That’s my King”.
Religion this noble blue ball is our most inspiring source of information that has ever existed. Not only does it inspire joy and enlightenment in the hearts of the many that hear, it has excelled through centuries of criticism and attempts by communist to smother it completely out.
Ignorance through atheism and a crafty guessing game by immoral individuals are no excuses for what is inevitable.
1Co 2:14 - [In Context|Read Chapter|Original Greek]
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1Co 3:6 - [In Context|Read Chapter|Original Greek]
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
1Co 3:19 - [In Context|Read Chapter|Original Greek]
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
1Co 4:5 - [In Context|Read Chapter|Original Greek]
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
I don't see why religion and science can't coexist, after all both of them made possible humanity evolution. Maybe the science men should open their eyes and see God's miracles that are surounding them. The miracle of life is all around us, and as far as i know there is no artificial life created in any laboratory yet. This should be enough to prove them the existence of God, and then, maybe they would appreciate religion more. Jesus church
"Religion this noble blue ball is our most inspiring source of information that has ever existed...attempts by communist to smother it completely out."
Communism was a religion in its own right, enforcing dogmatic following of a chosen one, it was indistinguishable from a religion, aside the fact that it may have lacked supernatural claims.
"Ignorance through atheism"
You call it ignorance, I call it honesty. I don't believe just incase there is a heaven and I may go there, I don't believe because I have yet to see evidence. Why assume that an omnipotent would rather have someone who has blind faith, than someone who has come to the conclusion by rational enquiry?
"I don't see why religion and science can't coexist"
Religions tend to assert things such as an afterlife without sufficient evidence. In science, the evidenciary standards are quite high.When you speak of science opening peoples eyes to "God's" miracles, perhaps you should ask yourself if there is only one god and not many many more.
"The miracle of life is all around us"
The "miracle" of death and destruction is also around us, various critters killing each other painfully, slowly, so that they may survive. One must look at the entirety at it all, not just the things which seem appealing to you.
"as far as i know there is no artificial life created in any laboratory yet. This should be enough to prove them the existence of God"
Whether or not we can create artificial life in the laboratory, it does not prove or disprove the existance of god or gods. Being unable to concieve an explanation as to how life began does not justify you filling in gaps in knowledge with "God did it".
"maybe they would appreciate religion more."
No, I do not appreciate religion at all. This does not mean I will refuse to believe in god or gods if the evidence does arrive, I would change my mind when it comes to god belief. However, religion has made out god to be this petty childlike being, contradictory in many cases. One does not need to ascribe to a particular religion to believe in god.
[edited to remove spam link]
Do remember that many religions conflict on various beliefs. Another person's religion may seem fallacious to you, but remember they may feel the same about your religion.
I agree with many of the points and it is refreshing to see someone digging deeper and wider than someone such as Dawkins seems to be willing to. I also see a connection between globalism and New Atheism and wrote about it in article "New Atheism: New Excuses and New Abuses"
http://templestream.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-atheism-new-excuses-and-new-abuses.html
I would appreciate any openminded commentary on that article. Also, for anyone interested in investigating the validity of the Bible, I wrote an article "An Open Challenge to Bible Critics" at the same blog.
I followed this link and I heartilly recommend it. It is hilarious. Here's a snippet:
The evidence that the spiritual world is real? But that's not all. If you read this you'll find that the Bible predicted practically everything that's ever happened including richard Dawkins. You couldn't make it up! Well actually that's not true. Somebody obviously did.
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